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How to Go From a Few Units to Over 1,000 with Monick Halm

The BiggerPockets Podcast
65 min read
How to Go From a Few Units to Over 1,000 with Monick Halm

Are you looking to take your investing from casual to serious someday? Have you ever thought about what it would take to own thousands of units without having real estate run your life?

Well, you’re in luck! On today’s show, we interview Monick Halm. Monick’s story will blow you away as she shares how she went from house hacking a duplex in L.A. to owning over one thousand units! Monick’s super simple system for finding others to partner with and invest in her deals has allowed her to scale without creating an overwhelming amount of work for herself.

You’ll be amazed at Monick’s super simple formula for using the “three Cs” to find partners, her tips for raising private money naturally, and the effortless way she scales her investing. Do NOT miss her seven step criteria for choosing a new market and how to evaluate an area to find where it is in the market cycle (including which point you want to jump in at). Monick’s story is creative, encouraging, and inspiring to investors of all levels. Don’t miss out on this show filled with practical advice today!

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Read the Transcript Here

This is the BiggerPockets podcast Show 306.

‘Yes, I would much rather have like 25% or 50% of a much bigger pie than a 100% of the little pie. Either a 100% of nothing, right? Because if it was up, I was going to do all by myself, then I would have definitely been limited in terms of what I could do.’

You are listening to BiggerPockets Radio. Simplifying real estate for investors large and small. If you are here looking to learn about real estate investing without all the hike, you are in the right place. Stay tuned and be sure to join the millions of others who have benefited from BiggerPockets.com, your home for real estate investing online.

Brandon: What is going on everyone? This is Brandon Turner, host of the BiggerPockets podcast. Here with my co-host, Mr. David, former prison guard, Greene. How are you doing, David?

David: I am doing great. We have an incredible show.

Brandon: We do.  You are not even going to talk about prison guard? Come on.

David: Well, you can talk about it in the show a little bit.

Brandon: That is true.

David: I am in a much better place in life right not. I do not want to have to go back to talking about prison guard. I am now hosting the BiggerPockets podcast from crying out loud, full steam ahead here.

Brandon: On the prison note, the reason I brought that up, you guys will listen, it is towards the end of today’s show and today’s show is pretty long. Make sure if you are like driving to work, listen to the whole entire thing. Probably one of the funnier moments I think on the BiggerPockets podcast in like recent memory is when we talked about what we call prison hacking. We will get to it later but before we get there, David, anyway, what is up? What have you been up to? You buying any real estate deals?

David: I just closed on one about a week ago and now I am focusing more on some of the rehabs that I already have going on. I was able to refinance two more properties and pull money out. I think on both deals together, I only left like $10,000 or $15,000 between each house and I added about $30,000 to $40,000 in equity on each one. I was pretty excited about how that worked out. That was with the BRRR method. Now, I am thinking about like some of the stuff our guest talks about. She gets into syndication, she gets into like seven steps for choosing a market. That was really really good.

Brandon: Really good.

David: A lot of actionable advice in today’s episode.

Brandon: Yes. The three C’s. I love it. You guys are going to love the three C’s. Talk about raising money, if you guys are looking for partners or raising money from private lenders or whatever, like her advice for how to find these people is some of the best I have heard on the podcast for that. Like really, really good stuff. Listen up for that. But before we introduce you to Monick, let us get to today’s show sponsor.

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Brandon: Alright, with that, let us move on. Now, I want to get to today’s Quick Tip because I almost forgot it. Today’s quick tip is this. Look, we will talk about this with Monick later on in the show, but as we are recording this introduction after just recording with Monick, I want to bring up this fact, there are an overwhelming number of males in the real estate investing industry, right? I am sure you guys will notice that most of our guests are males. Even though I do think we probably ask about the same number of male versus female. I think it shot down from female.

My quick tip is this today, if you are a female investor who is crushing it, you have done at least 10 deals, make sure you apply to come on the podcast. Go to BiggerPockets.com/guest. Put your name in there, like we want to talk to more female investors. If you are a male investor, I want to just encourage all the guys out there to remember like if there is a way to can encourage our real estate sisters in what they are doing, do not make them feel bad. I mean we want to make this an inclusive space for everybody, right? Fine little ways that you can try to encourage the female persuasion to get into this business because you, I mean, everybody should be able to do real estate. It is the best investment on the planet and we want to that everyone is aware want to make sure that everyone is aware of that.

David: Absolutely.

Brandon: That is really what Monick’s mission is in both her business, her life. She has got a lot of really great things to talk about there. Let us just get to that show. Today, we are talking with Monick Halm. Monick is a real estate investor who went from doing a few small deals to her first year doing syndication about over a thousand units in one year. It is a crazy cool story and you will learn to kind of a mindset shifts that had to happen to get there. How she uses partners in different ways, how she finds markets, how she finds deals, how she raises money, she is just absolutely crushing it. You guys are going to love this. Without further ado, let us get to the interview with Monick. Alright, Monick, welcome to the BiggerPockets podcast. Good to have you here.

Monick: Thank you. It is great to be here.

Brandon: Yes. Let us talk about your real estate story. I know a little bit but not a lot. Let us dive in. I know you scaled up pretty quickly at one point, but let us go earlier in your journey. How did you get started with real estate investing?

Monick: I got started completely by accident.

Brandon: Nice, nice.

Monick: I knew nothing about real estate investing. All I had ever been taught was to buy your house. My parents taught me about money that you should just go be a doctor, lawyer or professor engineer. That is go to college, get the best job you can, and then buy a house. I became a lawyer and then after a couple of years I went I guess it is time to buy that house now, this was 2005 in Los Angeles, towards the top of the last bubble. Even though I had a six figure salary, I could not afford a house in a decent neighborhood in LA because…

David: Because LA is crazy.

Monick: Because LA is crazy and $700,000, $800,000 and $900,000 is what I was looking at for a house in a semi decent neighborhood. A friend of mine in a similar situation said, ‘Well, why do not we buy a duplex? You live on one side, I will live on the other side.’ I thought, well, that is a good idea because I could afford half a house. We went in to look for something and we ended up, instead of finding a property that had two equal sides, we ended up finding a property that had one bigger units like it is some big craftsmen and the downstairs is one bigger unit then upstairs with a smaller two bedroom unit and there was a converted garage in the back. We both like that bigger unit so we each took a bedroom in that one, ended up renting out the other units and then we even had a friend rent out our basement. We started out and then I went, ‘Oh my God, these people are paying our mortgage expenses.’ It rang out senses.

I accidentally got into house hacking, not even realizing that was a thing. That is how my first foray into real estate investing. When I met my husband, he had a duplex and then we got a single family rental together. After 2009, we sold, ended up well we lost a property in the downturn but we also ended up selling another property and we had money and we started to flip houses because properties are on sale. We were flipping and like we just learned from those HDTV shows. It was a lot of like that looks fine, let us do that. After a while, the margins are getting slimmer and slimmer, was getting tougher and tougher to make it work. We thought, okay, well let us get a fourplex and we will buy and hold. At that point I met, that was 2015, and I ended up meeting somebody who just totally shifted the trajectory of our real estate investing.

We are trying to find this fourplex in LA and we could not find anything that made any financial sense. Happened to meet Robert Helms of the Real Estate Guys Radio. We had a mutual friend who said you should talk to my friend Robert. He is the host of this podcast and he has also done like hundreds of millions of dollars’ worth of real estate investing. Maybe he could give you some advice and I said he probably could. I ended up meeting him and 10 minutes with him just like totally shifted a couple big paradigms and changed everything.

First, he was asking what I was doing. I was telling about the flipping and getting a fourplex and then I am saying, yes, we cannot find anything that is making any financial sense. He said, ‘LA is a tough market. I always say live where you want to live, invest where the numbers make sense. I went ha, I never thought about investing outside of where you live. I always thought you had to drive to your property and check and self-manage it. I just did not know better. But literally, when he said that, I opened up the world. Then the next thing he said was, ‘You can get that fourplex by yourself but you are limited to your own capital and credit.

Alternatively, you could bring a group of investors together and you could get a 100 or 200 unit apartment building.’ Then he started telling me about the benefits of that, like how it could leverage and spread the risks and go further faster. Oh my God, I think my head exploded. I do not know why I said that. I always thought you needed Donald Trump’s bank account to do that kind of thing and I just had no idea that was a possibility.

Brandon: That is awesome.

Monick: For like a normal person.

Brandon: Okay. I want to go unpack all this stuff. This is really good. First of all, I will give a shout out to Robert and The Real Estate Radio Guys. Like that podcast actually was a huge inspiration for me as well. In fact, I listened to it so much before we even started the BiggerPockets podcast. Like when I like became good friends with Josh and I came onboard the BP. The first thing I did, I was like, ‘Josh, we are going to start a podcast. We are going to start a podcast just like these guys.’ Like they were our inspiration so I will give a shout out. Yes, if you guys are looking for a good real estate show, listen to The Real Estate Radio Guys. They do a fantastic job. A really high level stuff. Just very good guys. We actually need to get them on the show. Anyway…

Monick: Yes, Robert and Russ are great.

Brandon: That is awesome.

Monick: They became my mentors and they are just really quality people and just, yes,

really.

Brandon: Yes, yes. You need to connect us again. Actually, I connected with them a long time ago, but we need to kind of… Maybe I will bug you for an introduction again and we will get them on the show because, yes, super good guy.

Monick: Happy to.

Brandon: Alright, let us go back to the beginning. House hacking this idea, right? You bought this thing. I am curious, you said your husband when you met him also had a duplex already, right? That is funny because I wonder if there is like a thing like people who like real estate like people who like real estate? Like even like you guys did not know what you were doing, you found each other, I do not know.

Monick: No idea. He knew a little bit more, but yes, it was totally an accident. Even though I was house hacking, I still did not even put two and two together. Like I could replicate this, I could do this more, I still had in my head like trade the time for money. I am a lawyer, even though I was miserable as a lawyer. I hated it, but that was all I knew. It just took like it was like eventually we are doing this. I was like, this is actually giving me the opportunity to not do that. Great.

Brandon: That is awesome.

Monick: I am not like the sharpest tool in the shed. Like it could take me a while to figure and then I am like just like accidentally hop into things. It is like, oh wait, this is cool, this works.

Brandon: That is funny.

Monick: It was not as planned.

David: It is funny as you say I am not the sharpest tool in the shed and you are like, yes, I just became a lawyer and I was kind of bored. Maybe I will go buy a duplex and come up with the most creative solution I have ever heard where we are each going to own half of it and live in our own half. Like, I am just not the sharpest tool in the shed. I had to talk to that guru to get started. I think your story is awesome so far, Monick, like there is a lot of people that are going to have a lot to gain from what you are saying.

Brandon: Yes, that is cool. Did you know I was actually going to be a lawyer. I took the LSAT and like I was applying to law schools and then I read John Grisham’s book, The Firm, it was like a fiction book, right? It just goes over and over and over like stresses how like horrible being a lawyer is. I am like, wait, being a lawyer is not fun? I started like looking into it and every lawyer is like do not be a lawyer. My own lawyer was like do not be a lawyer. I was like, okay, what do I do? I guess I will flip houses. I want to go, okay, so you did the house hack thing…

Monick: You did smart.

Brandon: Good, good. I chose the right… My dad still will say to me today, ‘You know, you could still go back to law school.’ I am like, thanks dad, I am doing okay. But walk me through that idea of flipping houses. I mean, where were you doing that at? You were in LA flipping?

Monick: We were in LA flipping and it is funny since I found out what the prices are in other markets. I was oh, yes, okay. We just thought we would sold this property and we had $600,000 that we could play with. We bought a few properties. Our first property was just under $300,000 which in LA was like ‘Oh, that is so cheap.’

Brandon: Yes, yes.

Monick: Other markets are like, ‘God, that is really expensive.’ Fourteen hundred square foot bungalow, but we were just watching HDTV shows. Flip or flop and whatever and I thought we could do that. We have done renovations in our houses before. Let us just do and try it and have fun. We had a good contractor that we had worked with to do our own homes and we lucked out. We never lost any money flipping and I think we usually made a 20% to 30% on our investments.

Brandon: Yes, that was awesome.

Monick: Yes, it was fun until it just got really hard and really competitive.

David: Margin shrunk out, yes.

Monick: Yes in that market. Yes.

Brandon: They are kind of this like ebb and flow in the flipping world, right? Like flipping works really really well for a while. First of all, it is really hard to flip because there is like, I do not know, the economy is horrible and we were in the tank, right? Then everyone figures out that flipping actually works and so then it works really really well for a short time and then everyone figures out it is working really well so everyone gets into it and it is then again really hard to find deals but they are easy to sell and then the market crashes again and you can find the deals but you cannot find the money and nobody wants to buy them and so it is back hard again. It is like flipping is really good on that incline, right? But…

Monick: Yes, you find the right market cycle, right point in the market cycle. We were in the right point in the market cycle when we started.

David: What skills do you think people need to be really good at in order to flip houses and did you have those? Did you build those? What can you tell us about that?

Monick: Well, I think… I mean there were a couple of things that makes a difference. I mean first is really being able to understand the market and where it is going. Having a really good sense of what you are buying at for, how much it is going to cost you, where, what… Just understand the numbers so that you have enough margins that is going to work. Then you have to be really good at putting together a great team because time is money when you are doing flipping because you are not making anything but you still have to pay for them. Pay your expenses. Some we did all cash, others we got some financing but you are still paying the financing, paying the property taxes, paying utilities. The longer it takes you, the more you are going to lose.

Yes, you need to have a really great team with you. You have to be able to put together the best contractors and they need to work fast and work well. Then also get a sense of… The question I would always ask is is this change going to pay? Is this going to pay for itself, right? A lot of people want to go into flipping and make the house that they would want to buy, that they would want to live in, and then they are going to over improve the house.

Brandon: Yes.

Monick: It does not necessarily need the nicest materials, the best… It depends on the area but you want to make it nicer but not too nice that you are not going to be able to recoup your investment in the in the property.

Brandon: Yes.

Monick: You always want to… Is this going to pay for itself?

David: That is the way that Brandon has to figure out how he should be like maintaining his beard. He wants them to be nice but not too nice to where he likes shows up everybody else that comes on the show. He seems to have the same struggle that you have when it comes to upgrading a house. Because if you go too far with it, then you look like a Greek God with a marble, chiseled beard.

Monick: Yes. I have been looking at his beard.

David: Then you get sucked into it, right?

Monick: If only I could have once like that.

David: Like over taxed. That is it. Monick, you said something very interesting. You said you need to find the right partners. A lot of people are wanting to get started investing in real estate just like you and they just do not know how to take that first step. In my opinion and Brandon’s opinion, and I know yours too now, you know that having a partner is someone or something that can bridge that gap between where I am in getting that first deal. Once you get the first deal, like all the dominoes just start falling in place, right? Like you met your husband and now the two of you can work together because you each had something separately before. Can you give me an idea of some tips that people should look for in another partner? Like do you have any criteria that you are looking for when you are evaluating? Would this person be a good partner? If so, what are they?

Monick: Yes, absolutely. Real estate is such a relationship business, right? Who you partner with is crucial. I learned something from a woman, Beth Clifford, she is an international developer and kind of a mentor of mine, and she talks about the Three Cs. That was something that I learned from her and always follow with everybody I work with. The Three Cs are this. First is character. You want to look for what is the character of the person that you are working with that you have no control over, right? The character have to be high integrity, honest. There are people that are trustworthy, they are good people.

For me, it is important that they are not transactional and not just about the deal and themselves but really about relationships. My philosophy is I want to have relationships for life with people and it is not just about this one deal. I want to be able to do deal after deal after deal, I want a project, different project. I want them and be friends. I wanted to have a relationship with somebody for a whole lifetime and not just like let us get them in there and then like chew them up, spit them out and go to the next, right? They need to be that way as well. Character is first and foremost and they just need to do what they are going to say… Say what they are going to do and then actually do what they say.

Then I look for commitment. How committed are they to the project? How committed are they? Say you have a contractor and like you have asked them to do this work and then they are like, ‘Yes, I am going to do it but then they have five other projects that they are also working on. They are not really committed to you and your timeline or you have another partner and maybe they are not also committed to the same values. For me, I want to leave a property and a community better than I found it. Not just with flipping, but with every property we have. They need to have that same commitment to excellence and to leaving something better than they found it and commit commitment to win-wins as well. I look for commitment.

Then lastly is capacity. Do they have the capacity to do what you are partnering with them for? If they are contractors, then they are excellent contractors. If they are developers, then they are excellent developers if they are. If that would be a broker, then they are the best broker. Whatever it is, then they are like excellent at it, they are the best. I have learned that you work with the best, they will not cost you money, they will make you money. I always try to work with the best at whatever it is that they do.

Brandon: That is so good. That is really good. Alright, Monick, what I love about this is when you first started talking about it I thought you meant like… I thought we were talking just like business partners, right? We say partners but in reality I love that you look at that in a bigger sense, right? Because when you are working with a contractor, you are partnering with that contractor to get the job done. When you are working with a lender, you are a partner with that lender to get the job done. It does not necessarily mean just this is my business partner who is on the top of my business plan, right? This is anybody you work with has got to have those Three Cs. The character, the commitment, and capacity, is that right?

Monick: Yes, absolutely. I look for that or in anybody. I guess it is not the legal definition of partner but it is as if not they are on my team, that I consider them a partner in this deal that we are doing and they need to have those Three Cs.

David: I think that is really easy to follow advice for anyone who is asking that question of what do I look for? It causes anxiety. How do I know who to partner with, right? You just break that down really simple. Are they high character? Ask them questions to find out. Do they just care about making money? Are they are going to take advantage of you or they are not going to hold up their part, or are they looking for a lifelong relationship where they do not want to kill the sheep, they want to sheer the sheep. Get the wool, let it grow back, and then be able to do that again. Commitment, I love your definition of they want to leave it better than they found it, right? Are they committed to doing things the right way and bringing value to the relationship. Capacity, we do not really talk about that enough but that is a really big point, right? Like how good somebody is at what they do should go into you deciding if you are going to work with that person or not.

You said something really smart. It is like great talent does not cost you money, it makes you money. I see that at my job as a real estate agent constantly. There is agents who are not very good that really need a deal and their big value is I will discount my commission more than the other person. You save five grand or ten grand on the commission and you give up $50,000, $60,000, $70,000 on what you could have made on the house if you had a good experienced agent.

Monick: Exactly.

David: It is like that with contractors, right? You will get a contractor that will come in and say, ‘I am cheaper than the next guy, use me.’ Then he goes like six weeks over and your hard money costs are stacking up and the market turns on you and interest rates go up and you do not get as much for your house because you did not focus on his capacity, how good they were. You focused on like how cheap they were. That Three C system, I bet you could apply it to almost anything. It would not just be real estate, that is really good.

Monick: Yes. It really is anybody that you want to work with. If you are going to hire somebody, an employee, you look at the Three Cs and anybody. You are right, you can be penny wise, pound foolish and try to save a buck by going with the cheaper person and then you end up being screwed. At the end it caused you so much more or they are just crap and they do not do it right and then you would have to go and hire the good person to come and fix what they did in the first place. I have definitely…

David: This is really good.

Monick: Definitely made that mistake before.

David: You have got this system where now you are confident finding partners, you buy some small multifamily deals, you get some momentum going, you kind of understand what you are doing. Then at some point you have scaled up really quickly because now you are doing some big stuff, right? Can you tell me like what that process looked like with how you scaled up and then maybe how those Three Cs translate into the new world that you are operating in?

Monick: Sure. As I was saying before, I had this conversation with Robert Helms and I have found… He said about bringing groups of investors together and I went, ‘Yes, I want to do that, right?’ It was just like ding ding ding, load up in my head. I went home that night and I told my husband like let us do this, let us learn how to do this. We signed up for his syndication seminar, the real estate guys do syndication seminar several times a year where they teach people that, how to bring groups of investors together to buy larger properties. We went and just loved it and I thought, yes, this is it. This is what I want to do. We started mentoring with them and we got some other mentors because I realized that if I was going to be taking other people’s money and I had to, I was going to… If they are going to trust their money with me and I really really really needed to know what I was doing.

David: Yes.

Monick: I invested a lot in mentorship, in trainings, and I think do good at least 60 grand that year and probably more over the course of time to learn and train but it paid off. In that one year, we did four syndication and we did some… We passively invested in some things and then we syndicated for deals and we got over a thousand units in that one. Is that first year just by partnering with other people?

Brandon: Yes, I knew about that. First of all, can you explain to those who do not know what the word syndication means? Like we are kind of talking around it. What is that then that will go on from there?

Monick: Yep. A syndication is basically a group of investors that come together to purchase a property. Usually, how it happens is there are passive investors and active investors in syndication. The active investors, sometimes they are called the sponsors, sometimes they are called the syndicators, are the people that will find the deal, bring the investors together and manage the asset. Not necessarily property managers that will hire third party property managers but we are managing the managers, making sure the taxes get paid and distribution checks get sent out.

We were managing the asset, managing the investment. Then there are passive investors who pay in to the investment and they will say that we get an apartment building that is going to, it is a $5M apartment building and we are raising a $1,000,000 of equity for the down payment and another million dollars for capital expenses. I am just throwing out some numbers. We are raising $2,000,000 worth this property. Then in $100,000 increments, we get 20 people to put in $100,000 each and they just share in the returns. The active investors will do the work and manage it and then the passive investors put in the money and it comes back difference.

Brandon: That is awesome.

Monick: That is basically syndication.

Brandon: Syndication is really powerful, right? Because you are bringing together and creating a winwin situation, right? So you got people who have money… A lot of times we talk about this thing and I put it in the book that Josh and I wrote recently called The Deal Delta is this concept. Basically it says that in any deal you have to have three things. You have to have knowledge to know what you are doing. You have to have hustle, in other words the person getting things done. Then you have to have money. But in any deal, you do not have to be all three of those things, right? What I love about syndication is that it says, ‘Hey, I am going to have the knowledge and I am going to have the hustle, but I am going to bring in other people for the money.

Those people are saying, ‘Well, I do not have time for the hustle and maybe I do not have time for knowledge or maybe they have the knowledge but no hustle but they have money and there is a lot of people, especially in today’s world that have money. The stocks, have done great. Their house is shut up 500 grand in the last few years. They have got this cash and they are like, well, what do I do with it? What they do is you all come together, and the syndicator, which is what you are doing, is you put it all together, you make all the magic happen. It is very, very powerful. Now, the downside of course is you are sharing your profits with a lot of other people, right?

Monick: Well, I mean, yes and no. Like most people, they have… Say you have $25,000, $50,000, a $100,000 to invest in a syndication but you do not have the whole thing to buy an apartment building. You are also able to leverage other, even as a passive, you are leveraging other people’s money to be able to get into it. Then your money might be making you 10%, 12%, and it is without you doing any work it is coming back with friends. A lot of people are very happy to invest in that kind of deal. When I started, I thought that it would be really hard to find the money. I thought, oh gosh, why would people want to give me money to do this kind of thing?

Brandon: I had the same figure, yes.

Monick: First of all, they are not giving me money. It is not about me, that is what I have learned. It was never ever ever about me. They are not doing it for me, they are not gifting me anything, they are doing it because they want their money to grow and this is an opportunity for them to grow their money. They are so happy to have, like a bank account. They are lucky if it is making 1%. The stock market is really really high. If you are going to be putting in money now, it is like you try to buy low, buy high, it is not a good time to buy and an average it will make 7% but it is like it really depends on when you… This… I can go into the stock market.

It is not as good of an investment but let us just say that people want to have their money in real property and they want to be making it under all tax benefits to that accrue to real estate investing and you can get that and even as a passive investor. People are happy to get their money and working. Finding the money is the easy part. It is really finding deals that makes sense, that is more challenging.

David: There is something I really like about what this syndication model that you are describing. I know it is easy to get hung up on. Well, I do not want to bring in investors because I will give up a piece of the deal and that means the profit, right? Any deal at all, there is two things going on. There is what you are earning, there is the money you are making then there is what you are learning which is usually even more valuable. Because those two things rhyme, it sounds like it has to be wisdom when I say it because obviously if something rhymes, it has to be true, right?

Brandon: That is true.

David: In your case, it really is, right? When you are a passive investor, you are earning money and you are not doing any work and you do not necessarily have to have any knowledge, right? But when you are the person in your seat, Monick, not only are you earning money but you are the one who is getting the knowledge. That is probably the most valuable thing in the entire deal and you are growing in your understanding, in your experience, in your wisdom and your capacity to now go earn more money in different ways because you got the experience, you have built the relationship, you were the one managing it all and there is way more value in that than just what you are earning, right? That is something I think people should keep in mind.

Monick: Yes, absolutely.

David: Do not just get hung up on I am giving away part of the deal like I do not like to invest passively in other people’s deals as much because I feel like I missed out on the learning. Like he is making the relationship with a broker, he is finding the lender, he is understanding how agency debt works versus private money. He knows what a bridge loan is. All I know is whatever my little like quarterly statement says of how things went and I get my money back passively. For those who are interested in syndicating, I think that that is something to consider. You are the one gaining all the experience and that makes that much more powerful for you when you are in that position.

Now, for those people who are hearing this and they are thinking, okay, this sounds good, tell me a little bit, Monick, about what a typical conversation would be like when you are talking with someone who is new who could be interested in investing with you? How do you find those people? How do you bring that topic up? It is obviously you are not standing in line in a safe way and like, ‘Hey, you look like you have a Gucci purse. You probably have money. Would you like to invest in my deal, right?’ Like help people understand what it looks like to casually and naturally bring this up.

Monick: Okay. I will, but can I make a point first about something you just said? You actually can learn a lot as a passive investor. We started as passives in order to learn what it is like to be a syndicator. We learned by combing into a deal and being alongside and going, okay, how are they doing this? What are they doing? You actually can learn a lot as a passive if you have that desire to learn. Then I think being a passive is a great way to learn what works and what does not work from the active site.

Brandon: Yes, I think you have to be actively seeking to learn, right? Like, yes, it is a huge opportunity. Like I invested in a deal about a month ago, two months ago, something like that. Somebody’s syndication. I have literally chosen not to learn anything from this. Like I have just been like I do not want to know what you are doing because I am busy with this other projects that I am working on. Like I have chosen not to, but if I wanted to I could learn. I mean I did learn a lot just in the process of vetting the deal and stuff but it is like… What I love about that is it you can choose, right? If you want to learn more about syndication, put money into somebody syndication and then ask questions and watch them and learn.

Monick: Exactly. Learn that way. And you should, you need to know enough to invest in syndication, right? I would not take money from somebody this is partially answering the next question you had just asked but I do not want to take money. I cannot, like legally, I really cannot, Legally, I cannot just take money from somebody who does not understand the deal. They have to understand how it works and what their money is going to be doing, what the risks are because there are always risks with any investment.

I will spend a lot of time educating my investors or potential investors to make sure that it is a fit for them and that they understand what the deal is and they understand what the risks are. Because you cannot just put in your, oh wow, that like, well, she seems like a really nice person. I am just going to write a check for $100,000 or whatever. Alright and then just go, yes, that sounds good or you cannot invest that way. You really need to make sure that you understand the deal. You are going to learn. You need to learn enough to know what is a good deal for you.

Brandon: Yes, that is really good.

Monick: I just want to put that out. I think the question that David had asked was how do I find investors?

David: Yes.

Monick: A few ways. Most of my investors have actually found through different real estate groups and those are the easiest investors to work with because they are educated. They understand real estate, they understand the deal, they understand why they would want to invest in real estate. Not everybody knows why would you want to invest in real estate? I was an attorney. I went to an Ivy League school. I was joking before, I am not stupid, but I really did not understand real estate. It was something that I would want to look into or try to do. I just had no clue about it. When you are talking to somebody who has no clue about it then it is a much bigger hurdle than try to get them to understand what is real estate investing, what is the syndication? Why would they be interested in doing that?

There is a lot of educational steps that you have to take before you can get them. I get them to invest with you like I will take their money. It is a lot easier for people who are ready to get real estate and they are like, ‘Okay, that makes sense, I get it. I have this extra money. It is in my self-directed IRA. I cannot be active with it. I have this passive money, let me invest it with you.’ Probably 80% of my investors I have met through real estate groups and a lot of them are syndicators themselves. They are just some of your… A lot of it will be self-directed retirement account money that they cannot put into their own syndications and they will put it in other people’s syndications.

David: Yes.

Monick: A lot of them are that way and then the other 20% have been friends and family. Then also, some people that I have met through my group. I have a group that I created for women, real estate investors, real estate investor goddesses were I… It is education, inspiration and mentorship, and sisterhood for women who want to invest in real estate.

David: Nice.

Monick: Through that group and through women who train and understand syndication. I have investors from there too.

David: In other words, networking.

Monick: Networking.

David: You put yourself out there, you go to local events, you talk with people, you teach people, you help people and people naturally want to invest with you. That is awesome.

Monick: Yes, basically, that is it. Then I look for the same Three Cs in my investors as well.

David: Yes.

Monick: They need to be good character and part of that is being easy to work with but also just like honest and they do what they are going to say which is they do not have much to do, but still, say you are going to wire them money. I do not like to do that.

David: Yes, better wire.

Brandon: Better do it.

Monick: Just like this easy. Then like commitment to the deal and knowing that we are all about helping, leaving a property and community better than we found it and not necessarily trying to squeeze out the most money. We do want to make money but we are not going to be slum lords or anything like that in order to do so. It is not always about how do you make the most buck but how do you do it well. Then capacity, like I said, they need to be able to understand the deal. They need to better understand what they are getting into. I did not know legally I am required to either have people that are accredited and or sophisticated. They have to be sophisticated enough to understand the deal. If they are not sophisticated, legally I cannot take their money.

Brandon: Yes.

David: You said something I think that is very powerful and I want to make sure that we do not skip over it. You said that you need your investors to do what they say they are going to do. I know there are so many people that are looking for the secret sauce, like how do I get successful in business? How do I get deals? How do I get agents or brokers or wholesalers to bring me the deal before someone else? I swear, if there is one thing I have learned that is more important than anything, it is just do what you say you are going to do. Like I cannot over stress this enough, you can be the most boring, weird, odd person, but if you say you are going to do something and you do it…

Brandon: Do not make fun of me, David.

David: People like that. Well, I mean obviously people who cannot do this overcompensate by growing a beard, right? It work at first, but eventually you get exposed. However…

Monick: A beard will only take you so far.

Brandon: Yes.

David: That is exactly right. Brandon, can we tweet that beard? It will only take you so far after today’s show. That is our quote. Like I found this real estate agent, the number one thing I can do to screw up getting somebody’s business is to say, ‘Hey, I am going to get back to you on this. I am going to do this thing,’ and then it is never a various, right? I have found for me it was always when I am driving in my car. I am like, I talk to a person who is like, ‘Yes, I think I want to sell my house. I do not know what it is worth,’ and I say, ‘Hey, no problem. I am going to look that up and I am going to get back to you with some comparables,’ right? Then I just get on a phone call and then do another phone call and my mind goes somewhere else and I get back to the opposite. I totally forgot I was going to do that. Then two weeks later I am like, ‘Hey, I am so sorry. I want to get back to you.’

They are like you are a flake man. They just do not trust you. You cannot recover from saying you will do something and not doing it. I had to develop a system where I would get somebody else involved so I could not mess it up, right? I would immediately say, ‘I need you to email me and say, ‘David, can you run comps for me? I forward that email to my assistant. She puts it on a To-Do-List. Now, I do not forget, right? That one little change that made me do what I said I was going to do leads to like closing way more deals and that is something that other investors should understand is as if you reach out to an agent and you are like I want to buy a house, send me houses that come out, and you make them do this work and then you do not buy the houses that match your criteria.

They are just going to stop bringing you deals completely. Monick, like it is great advice. Just if you can only take one thing from this show, it is do not make a promise that you are not going to deliver on and do not say you are going to do something and then not do it. You are better out to just not tell somebody that than it is to tell him and then not do it.

Monick: Yes.

Brandon: Something that. I also want to make sure that we touch on here, that you have mentioned several times is you are investing in, like you said, I live where I want, I invest where it makes sense. That obviously I am a huge proponent of that because that is the book I wrote, it is about that very topic. Like you should be investing where the numbers make sense, not what is convenient for you with where you live. One of the questions I get asked more than anything else is how do I know what market to invest in? I know my market, I do not know those markets, right? Can you give us a general idea of your criteria for when you are trying to figure out what could be a good market to invest in what you are looking at?

Monick: Yes, absolutely. I look at seven factors when I am choosing a market. When a market has all seven of these factors, it is hard to lose in that market. When a market does not have it, it is hard to win. The first is population growth. People are moving in there and the population is growing. You have properties, you need people to live in your properties or you need people to work in your properties and so you need the population is growing, you are likely to have tenants. But hand in hand with that is the second factor which is job growth. People are coming and they often come because there were more jobs but the people that are there will have jobs. They will be able to pay to rent your properties, job growth. The third is a diversified economy. You do not want to be in that one factory town, right?

David: Yes.

Monick: That like one or even that one industry town. It maybe have like several factors but it is all like that one industry and then that one industry is devastated and there goes all your jobs and your population. It has to be pretty diverse. You want lots of different types of industries, lots of different types of companies, big companies. A really strong, robust, diversified economy. That is number three. Number four is landlord friendly. You are a landlord and so you want to be in a market where it is easy to be a landlord. I live in Los Angeles, Los Angeles is not very landlord friendly. It is so tenant friendly. Then we will contrast that where we have a building in Dallas, right? Dallas is very landlord friendly.

In LA, if I have a tenant that stops paying, then it could take me upwards of nine months to get rid of them because it is just really hard to have somebody to have a tenant and evicted even if they are not paying rent. Contrast that with Dallas, usually within three weeks, they could be out. When you still have to pay your mortgage and you still have to pay utilities and you still have to pay property taxes, the difference between three weeks and nine months can be the difference between you keeping your property and losing it. Landlord friendliness really helps. Business friendliness is number five. A business friendly market, A, is more likely to have the job growth, diversified economy. But you are a business as when you have real estate. That can be taxed, that has to do with the taxes and it can have to do with regulations. It just is easier to do business there.

Personally, it is easier for you to do business in that market but also other businesses will be more attracted to that market and that will contribute to job growth so that is number five. Number six is the market cycle. There are four parts of the market cycle. A market is rising so it is really growing in jobs and population. It is like it is on the rise. Then another cycle is hot, like booming market. It has kind of got in there already and it is just hot, hot, hot. There is a lot of action going there but it tends to be on the expensive side because it is just very hot. Then the next cycle is a declining market, right?

The population is going down, the jobs are going down and sort of on the decline and then you have a stable market. It is not really rising or falling, it is just stable and steady. I like to invest in a rising market. That is when you are most likely to find the best deals. When it is hot… Deals can be found generally to those that are more about relationships. If you have good relationships, you might be able to find deals, but that is the most challenging. Declining obviously does not have the other market factors that you need. Then the stable market you could to but it can be hard to make that one grow. I like a rising market. Then the last but certainly not least is familiarity. You or one of your partners really needs to be incredibly familiar with the conditions on the ground. What? Because you can say, ‘Okay. Dallas is a great market but not all the neighborhoods in Dallas are equal.’

Some places are really chic and she-she in there. They are Class A and then other places are like war zones and you do not want to be there. Then even between like you could be in a decent market but you are on the decent sub-market, decent neighborhood, but you are in the wrong block or you are on the wrong street. Sometimes the difference between being on one block versus another block can be the difference between having a successful investment and an unsuccessful investment. You need that familiarity and that level of familiarity with the market and all of those things contribute to a successful investment for me.

Brandon: That is really really good, the seven factors in choosing market. In case you guys are listening right now, anybody listening and did not get to write that down or just maybe driving, just go to BiggerPockets.com/show306. Again, BiggerPockets.com/show306. We will actually will list those out there as well and of course have links to everything else we are talking about today but I want to make sure if you are driving, do not text and drive and try to write this stuff down. A really, really good stuff, yes, finding a market. Going to that, can you tell us a little bit? That first year you said the first big year syndicating you bought four properties and over a thousand units during that year. Where are these located? Where are some of the markets you found success in and what are these properties? Are they multifamily? Are they commercial properties? What are they?

Monick: The first one we did was a mobile home park in Jacksonville, North Carolina. Then we had some passive investments in Atlanta and Dallas and then we syndicated to apartment buildings in Albuquerque, New Mexico. Then we got another, we syndicated a development project in Lake Charles, Louisiana. A development of RV Park.

Brandon: Wow.

Monick: Workforce housing RV Park. All of that happened in that first year.

Brandon: That is cool. A mobile home park, I did not know that. Like I bought one recently and I really really really like mobile home parks right now and just kind of digging them. What made you want to go to the mobile home park?

Monick: It was about finding the right partner. We found, I just had a met a friend through being out networking who is big into mobile homes. He had several and he was doing another one and asked if I wanted to sub syndicate the park with him. I said, ‘Yes, let us do it.’ I like mobile homes. I like the parks, I like that you can own the land but not necessarily in the home and the tenant are in the home and that they tend to stay a long time and they are really can be a good cash cow properties. I was sold.

Brandon: That is awesome. Yes, same reason I liked it a lot. Okay. You are finding deals by finding partners, right? Is that the kind of the primary thing? You are working with different people who can?

Monick: Yes.

Brandon: Would you say your role primarily focuses on the money raising side or what would you say like your favorite part of it that you think is the best is in these deals?

Monick: Yes, it is more on the money raising side. We do have on the Albuquerque properties, we have been running those deals, managing the assets more, but on the other ones we have been more on the money side and investor relationships.

Brandon: Yes, that is awesome. Again, like it just shows when you get these larger deals, like if you are talking about like these large, if you did a thousand units in a year, it is okay to like you bring in people who are really good at certain things. L like what is their like what is there, I know you call it like genius or whatever, like what are they really good at? You are really good with, for example, that part of things. Maybe somebody else is really good at finding a mobile home park or they are really good at whatever it is that people are good at, right? That is the beauty of syndications. You bring together really top level people to work together and who cares if you split the deal two ways, three ways, four ways. Like at the end of the day, if it is a big enough deal, you are probably better off than doing it by herself. Would you agree?

Monick: Yes. I much rather have like 25% or 50 % of a much bigger pie than 100% of the little pie. Either 100% of nothing, right? Because if it was up, I was going to do all by myself, then I would have definitely been limited in terms of what I could do. Definitely would not have accomplished. I maybe would have got that fourplex by ourselves. Definitely would not have gotten anywhere near where we went if we were doing this alone. Yes, I am much happier to get a smaller piece of a much larger pie.

David: I think that there is some wisdom packed into what you are saying that evolves like a mindset shift that experienced investors that are doing deals have understood and newbies that are trying to figure out how to make their way into real estate have not quite got, right? Brandon has this analogy of if you have a lot of tools on your tool belt, you can tackle a lot of projects that are in a home renovation. You are not confined. All I can do is pink cabinet, so I have to find a that has everything great except for cabinets, right? If you have got all these different tools, you can be more flexible and flexibility, it builds wealth, you have more options, right? The same would be the case for like a professional sports team that has a lot of different offensive weapons. They can do a lot of different things.

I think a lot of newbies, they start off just thinking this is what I am comfortable with and I am just looking for something that meets this little scope of what I can do like I have this one hammer and I have to find a house that only needs nails to be hammered in. That is not how the good investors think. What they think is what resources do I have available and how do I use those, right? Like that is how the best coaches would think as well. Last year, we ran the ball a lot. But this year my running back got hurt and we are not that good. Our offensive line does not block very well for running, but I have some great wide receivers and a really good quarterback. Let us find a different strategy to put an office of game plan together that takes advantage of my weapons. They adapt to their environment, they do not try to find one thing in the environment that would adapt to them. It is like that when you find a partner like you could start off thinking I want to flip houses, like what you are saying, Monick.

Then you come across this partner who is very wealthy and knows mobile home parks but they just do not want to put time into it and you realize, wow, I just got a great wide receiver. What plays can I run that would get that person the ball and help our team win. Your whole business model shifts based on the talent that you have but you learn a whole bunch and now you have that in your tool belt, I understand mobile home park investing. Then you find another person who a great contractor and trying to get their business off the ground and they are going to give you great deals or maybe do the construction work at costs so that they can have a part of the deal and you are like, heck yes, I will go flip houses because my remodels half as much as the next person’s, right? That is how business actually gets done by successful people.

As you are listening to this, that is what I want you to understand is do not try to force your round peg into a square hole. If you got to go get a square peg if that is what you are looking at, Monick has understood, ‘I live in LA. I am working really hard to find one stinking fourplex. I do not like wasting my time. I am a lawyer. My time is worth a lot of money. I am smart. Why do not I just go where there is a bunch of round holes for the round peg that I have that I can make it work with?’ She comes up with her criteria for choosing a market, she shares it with us, now you can go to where it makes sense to invest. That is just kind of what I want people to understand about why Monick was successful. She knows she is smart but she was flexible. She said, ‘Well, I will take what the resources I have available to me are and I will go apply them in a way that makes sense.

Now, she is building wealth and doing some huge deals. I have a lot of respect for the way you have gone about this. I think you are doing it really well and a lot of people should be encouraged. If you think like Monick thinks, then you will have the same success that she does.

Brandon: Wow, that was like the longest analogy I have ever heard.

David: Yes, sorry.

Brandon: What I really want to know is tell us what one of your deals looks like, right? I am really curious to see how you put one together. If it is okay with you guys, why do not we move on into the deal deep dive and dive deep into one of Monick’s deals.

David: Deal Deep Dive.

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Brandon: Alright, let us get to the Deal Deep Dive. This is the part of the show where we dive really deep into one particular deal that you have done. Monick, do you have a deal in mind that you want to talk about today?

Monick: I do. I want to talk about the workforce housing RV park development deal.

Brandon: That is cool.

Monick: In Charles, Louisiana.

Brandon: Perfect, perfect. Let me go to this seven questions. Me and David can kind of go back and forth I guess. I will go first. What kind of property… I guess that is pretty obvious, you just said it but I will ask anyway, what kind of property was it?

Monick: It is actually really interesting because this property was we do not own the land. It is actually a land lease that we have a 15 year lease on with option to extend to 20 years. But we got the land permitted for a RV Park and this is the market where there is a huge amount of development happening. Maybe, that is all, actually not maybe. There is $118 billion dollars’ worth of new construction projects happening in Lake Charles right now so there is tens of thousands of construction workers coming into that market with not enough housing.

A lot of them are highly paid construction workers. They are making $80,000, a $100,000 a year and they have a per diem to stay. They like to take their per diem, get an RV and then be in an RV park. They can pocket some of the money but there is all of the RV parks in that area are 100% full. There is probably tens of tens thousands more people then there is spots. We have this… My partner got this land leased and got it permitted and we were able to develop this spark.

Brandon: That is cool.

David: Very nice. I really like where you are going with this. Okay, how did  you find this deal?

Monick: Through relationships. I met the developer at a conference, we kind of dated a little bit, like got to know each other to able to assess like his character and like the Three Cs and just thought okay. He and our other partners on the ground, two incredible women developers down there and we all met and thought, okay, this is a good fit. We like the project, we love them. It is like okay, we are going to raise money for this project. That is how  it sounded.

Brandon: Speaking of money, how much was, now this might be a little different cause it is a land lease. You mean you are renting the land, but how much… Tells us the numbers of the deal?

Monick: Okay. We are renting the land for $15,000 a month and the development costs was, were two point 7 million and we syndicated the debt. We syndicated all the money to develop the land and it was interesting way of organizing this particular deal or structuring the deal so that the investors have a debt interest at first. They are actually being paid 6% on their money. Well, we are about to open in two weeks. It is still been in the development stage but there have been able to get interest on their money and then once their interest is paid off, which should be within three to four years of our doors opening, then they convert to equity.

Brandon: Okay.

Monick: Then they still will get their money plus 6% then it converts to equity. That is how that deal is structured.

Brandon: Awesome. Awesome.

David: Okay, go ahead, Brandon.

Brandon: No, you. You take it, you take it.

David: You said h… Like you are starting to go.

Brando: I was going to say how did you negotiate it? Tell any negotiation stories in that in this deal.

Monick: Yes. In terms of the negotiation, there are negotiations about the lease and the development and then negotiating how we came into the project a little later, right? At this point there was already… They already had the land permitted. It was about negotiating how do we fit into the deal. Partly, it was a certain acquisition fee for the money we brought in plus a percentage of the deal on the back end.

Brandon: Cool.

David: Okay. Now you have mentioned a little bit about that, you funded it with syndication debt. Was there any other kinds of funding that you used for something other than developing the land?

Monick: The money was… Yes, it was all development. We had to bring in the utilities and we put in a general store, a little office and a laundromat into it. But mostly, it is like a glorified parking lot. Actually, I really liked that because the people that are leasing are not our tenants. It is really a parking lot laws that govern. People do not pay, they just get told.

Brandon: Yes, like the easiest eviction ever.

David: Yes, part of the tow company.

Monick: You know, Babe, they called a tow truck and off they towed and that is it. That is kind of cool. But the money was pretty much just for the development plus a couple of the fees. Then we set aside a certain percentage for interest payback as well, so that people… Often when you invest in the development, you do not get any money until the development is done and complete but the way it was structured is that the investors were getting 6% since day one.

David: Okay, that is cool. What is the plan? Normally I say what did you do with it but this is in processed. What is the plan? Well, we kind of combined this one in the outcome, like what, what is the next five, 10, 15, 20 years look like with this deal?

Monick: Yes. When we open this coming month, I do not know when this is going to broadcast, maybe it will be open by the time the podcasts is out but it is going to, it is actually almost 100% pre-leased. Our doors will open and we have it setup so that the 70% of the profits goes to payback the investors until they are all paid back plus 6% and then it converts to equity and then it is 50-50 at that point. Our plan is just to hold it for 15 years and then if it is still going strong in 15 years and we will do another and exercise our option the for the next five years after that. But everybody should have their money back within three or four years. Then it is just infinite return and it is just cash flowing and it is a very highly cash flowing property so it is really nice.

David: Alright. Well, what lessons, kind of last of the deep dive, what lessons have you learned on this whole deal so far?

Monick: The first is relationships. Relationships are everything. Our relationship to get into the deal but like most developments there have been some development delays. We were supposed to open in the spring, various things have happened, the utilities and neighbors and so it is got delayed until November. But one of the main things that we have going for us there are our relationships on the ground. Really great relationships with the city council, with the Planning Commission, the relationships that we have had allowed us to get the permit in the first place. Nobody else has been able to get an RV park permit since us a year and a half ago. Everything is about relationships especially there but I think in real estate in general, your relationships are, what is that, your network is your net worth. They are there everything especially with development.

Then the next thing that you can be creative and how you structure a deal. A lot of our investors, they wanted their money to be able to work for them. Not necessarily want it to be put away for two years and not get anything back. You can structure the deals in such a way so that you can meet everybody’s needs. Okay, your money’s in it but your interests are still making 6% and then it opens up and then you were making, 20% plus. You can be creative in how you structure. Those were the two main lessons I got from that deal.

David: That is a really good point, the relationships or what is going to make money. I was talking to another female investor recently. She is in the bay area and she owns a couple of properties and kind of house hack them. She basically has to work like a third of the time because she has so much money coming in and she reminds me a lot of you. She talks a lot about how there is a lot of women that are afraid to get into investing because they think they do not know enough. They are going to be taken advantage of by a contractor, they do not know how the numbers work, they think because they are a woman no one will take them serious. But I would say that there is probably an argument to be made that women in a lot of ways have a natural advantage when it comes to developing relationships. Like you are just better at it a lot of the time than guys are work.

We are kind of brought up to not do that. Once you grasp that, that like that is actually an asset that will help you as a business person and put it into play. You can turn it around from thinking, ‘I cannot do this because I am a woman,’ to ‘I am going to do this better because I am a woman.’ I wanted to ask you a question, it might be a little odd, but it is still something I think about all the time. Why do you feel like more women do not invest in real estate?

Monick: Yes, I have thought about that a lot because I went to my, that first syndication seminar, and I was like, ‘Yes, I love this. This is amazing. This is how you really build wealth.’ Maybe out of a 120 people, nine women were in that room. Most of the real estate events I go to, like the numbers are just like that. It is 90% plus male. I think that there are few few reasons. You touched on one of them. I think it is fear. But I would say the first one though is that women do not… A lot of women just do not know that it is an option for them. Like me at the beginning, nobody has ever taught me or told me anything about real estate. I just always learned. You go to school, you get a job, that whole like rich dad poor dad thing, right?

I had like middleclass dad and mom, right? That is all I learned and I just did not even realized that universe was out there. I think a lot of women are in that boat. Then the second one is they may know that it is out there and it is a possibility for them but they do not know the how of it, they do not know what steps they need to take. The how is what keeps them paralyzed even though they could go to BiggerPockets and learn and there is a lot of information out there but get fairing, like having it broken down for you and being guided I think it helps a lot. But a lot of women just do not know where to where to go exactly.

Then there is they may know the what is and they may know the how, but then this fear keeps them from going. This fear that they are going to be taken advantage of, this fear that they are going to lose money, there is fear. I think that the antidote for that is community and sisterhood and relationships. But having mentorship and support and models and seeing other people that look like you that are doing it and that are successful and I can say, yes, here I have done it and I can show you how.

David: Do you know of a community meant for women, business people and real estate investors that you can recommend, Monick?

Monick: How funny you should ask me that? I actually do. There is one that I started called Real Estate Investor Goddesses just for that. Because as I was going around, I realized that there were just so few women in the game. I do not think… Communities like yours are amazing. You guys have so much information and obviously it is not unfriendly to women but there is just a lot of men that they see and a lot of women just do not see women that look like them and they are just not sure that it is for them and they feel intimidated.

Having a community that is all women where we learned together, where we support one another, it is a sisterhood. I call it my antidote to the old boy’s network, it is our sassy sister’s network. Okay, again, support one another, work together. Also, we are still working with the men but just having this community to lean back on and learn from and be supported by. That is what Real Estate Investor Goddess is all about.

Brandon: That is awesome. Last question before we move on. What do you see the future look like for you? More syndication, bigger deals, smaller deals, like where are you headed?

Monick: Yes, just more and bigger, but doing more on the investor side and having just being a conduit for investors, especially women investors and deals. Kind of like really helping people who have money to invest find the right deals for them where their money can grow and do what they wanted to.

David: That is awesome. Love it, love it. Alright, let us move on to the next segment of the show which we lovingly refer to as our Fire Round.

It is time for the Fire Round.

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Brandon: Alright, let us get to the fire round. These questions are direct out of the BiggerPockets forums. They are real life people asking real life questions and we are going to fire them at you. Number one of the Fire Round, ‘Hi, BiggerPockets. Can anyone point me to a direction? Where do I start a syndication?’ I know it is a very general question, but like if they are like okay I am going to syndicate, what do I do first? Who do I talk to?

Monick: Get educated first.

Brandon: Okay.

Monick: I mean it is not necessarily something that, it is not going to be your first deal I am assuming, you are going to have some education, you are going to have some experience under your belt but when you want to get syndicated, you need to get educated. I would recommend where I learned from, the Real Estate Guys and going to the Real Estate Guys Radio. They have a syndication seminar, secrets of successful syndication which is a really great place to start. Syndication has a lot of legal requirements. You cannot just go out and take people’s money. You are going to need legal support, you are going to need mentorship. I really need to know what you are doing, I would not do it without getting the right lawyers, the right team in place and knowing exactly what you are doing.

You do not want to take anybody’s money without knowing what you are doing because you could win yourself free rent in a penitentiary. There are a lot of legal requirements so make sure you really get educated and learn before you get to.

Brandon: I have a really really good idea, that is really good by the way, but I have a really good idea. The next book that David… David, you and I should write a book together. Monick, you can help with it. We are going to call it jail hacking. It is about how to get financially free by committing felonies that the government takes care of you for life. Financial freedom. Why have I been working so hard?

Monick: For the whole rest of your life. You would never have to work again, at least not for more than like nine cents an hour.

Monick: You may have to work.

David: Making license plates? Dude, this might actually be the perfect partnership to do it because Monick can be like here is the strategies that you should use to syndicate.

Brandon: Yes, because you are a lawyer.

David: Yes. Brandon can handle like let me show you how you can mark it while you are in prison. I can be like, hey I was a deputy. I worked in jails, this is how you avoid getting shanked while you are doing it, right? We can hit every topic in jail hacking could a new thing.

Brandon: I am thinking, David, you were a cop and, Monick, you are a lawyer and I am causing trouble. The three of us should figure out how to get life in prison without actually doing any real damage.

Monick: I think we would…

Brandon: Bestselling book, alright, we are doing it.

Monick: Great idea.

David: It could be the sequel to Set For Life, Incarcerated For Life.

Brandon: How to jail hack your way to financial freedom. I like this.

David: Okay.

Monick: Syndicate cigarettes and…

David: This would be good.

Brandon: We are going to do it. Thanks, we are doing it.

David: Alright. Next question, Monick. When running the numbers on a multifamily deal, any suggestions on what average appreciation I should consider? I have heard inflation has been around 3% for the past 100 years so should I just use that?

Monick: Okay. I think you need to look at the market. I looked at the historical data in that particular market and look at it over the past five to ten years and I just use the historical data but it is a market specific. I cannot give you like a… Because of the number. 

Brandon: You cannot say use 2%, I think that is the best answer. Yes, it is market specific. Look at the data. Very good. Cool. Alright, number three, I love this one. How do I find a mentor? No one seems to want to talk with me. That is like a real problem though people have, right? Like they are excited, they are new, they are young and they just cannot find anybody that wants to actually like spend all their time talking real estate and teach them what to do. How do I find that mentor that is going to teach me everything?

Monick: Yes, right. Usually instead of thinking about like yourself and how they can help you, it is often helpful if you can think about how you can help them, right? It is like there is somebody that you want to work with, you want to learn from, you think how can I add value to them? Some of the mentors they will mentor you but you just have to pay for their mentorship. You are adding value by paying for it. Then other times maybe you can go, okay, you do this. I found a deal. I will bring you the deal, I will give you a cut, big cuts, maybe even the majority of it, right?

I will learn from you while we, while we do this deal together. Or you find out what they need, what would be helpful for them and then see if you can bring something to the table. Some people will just give for no reason, but they are not going to give a lot of time generally because people are busy. But if you can think about how can I add value to them, then that will be the best way to get them to help you.

Brandon: I love that you said that like no matter what, like value is exchanged in a mentorship and it might be you are paying for it. That is where some people pay $10, $20, $50, a $100,000 for mentorship and some people find another way to pay for it. Maybe it is through Starbucks on the a small scale or maybe it is through helping that person relive their childhood, who knows? Like there is something that has to, like there has to be a reason for both parties want to go do something. I think the question itself, nobody wants to talk to me. I think you hit the nail right on the head. Like they are looking at it from the wrong perspective. Like I keep asking everybody to teach me everything they know. Well of course, like why would they want to waste their time?

Monick: Yes, just be other focus. What I have learned from my mentors is it is never ever, ever, ever, ever about you. Like really if you can make it about the other person and think about how can you serve them or what is the Zig Ziglar quote, you can get anything you want as long as you help enough other people get what they want. Really do thinking about like how can I help other people get what they want and then you will be able to get what you want.

David: Okay. Last question on the Fire Round. ‘I actually want to ask each of you,’ and I am just going to expand on the one that you just responded to, Monick. ‘Give me an example of the wrong way to approach somebody looking for a mentorship so that our listeners can avoid doing certain things

Monick: Yes. Okay. I do not know you but here I have the outside. ‘I heard your podcast and I like you and I have this deal and here is this like a 30 page deal that I would love for you to analyze for me. Let me know if I should invest in this.’ Going right into like here or like…

David: Here is a job, clean this job for me for free and then I will call you my mentor so I do not have to feel guilty about asking for that.

Monick: Yes, exactly. Is it not great to be a mentor? We love giving back. It is like yes and…

David: Brandon?

Brandon: That is funny. I am going to go with the, I have had this a few times, like the random email that says, ‘Hey, I am wondering if I can pick your brain.’ First of all, which is the phrase, right? ‘I want to pick your brain. I live three hours away from you. Can we meet halfway?’ I love that one. I am like, no, I am not going to drive an hour for a half or a cup of coffee. Like , no, I do not have a car right now can you drive the whole way? No. Anyway.

David: It would be literally be cheaper for me to mail you the Starbucks card that you were going to buy me coffee than to drive all the way there to meet you to pick your brain. My favorite is when they are like, ‘Hey, I want to bring value to you. Tell me what you need and I will see if I could do it.’

Brandon: Yes.

David: Like you are now putting responsibility on me to figure out what are you good at and how can I train you for free to do something that I would have saved time had I done it myself. That is very good. Like do not be that person that wants to develop a relationship and you put the onus on the person you want to mentor you to figure out how to do it. Like put the onus on yourself to figure out what you are good at, what you can bring to the table and see if that is something that will work for them.

Monick: Yes.

Brandon: Alright. I love it. Alright, well that is the end of our Fire Round. Now, it is time to head over to the last segment of the show which we call our Famous Four. Alright, let us get to the Famous Four. These are the same four questions we ask every guest every weekend. We want to see what you got to say, Monick. Number one, what is your favorite real estate related book?

Monick: My favorite real estate related book is probably the Rich Dad, Poor Dad.

Brandon: The classic.

Monick: A classic. It got me well. It helped shift my mind a lot, so yes, a little purple book.

David: Great. What is your favorite business book?

Monick: My favorite business book is Going Pro by Steven Pressfield, which is sort of business sort of artistic, but you read it. It is short, but it kicks your focus.

Brandon: I have read the first one, right? I have read The War of Art by Steven Pressfield which was in my top three books of all time. I think it is so good.

Monick: It is great and Turning Pro.

Brandon: I have not read turning pro.

Monick: It is even like you will read it and it is so good and then you are going wow.

Brandon: Alright, I am going to buy right now.

Monick: Like, ouch. Like wow, it just beats you in the head with what you are not doing but in a good way, in a good way. It is brilliant.

David: That is awesome. I am going to totally pick it up today.

Brandon: Okay. Tell us about some of your hobbies.

Monick: I am a Yogi so I love Yoga and world traveling is probably my jam, that is my favorite thing. Just hop on a plane and go somewhere.

Brandon: Favorite location?

Monick: Favorite location? Well, Thailand is one of my favorite places in the whole world and Paris for different things and Buenos Aires but also now Sydney because my husband is from there, my in-laws are there. I just love going to Sydney.

David: Super Cool. I have not been to Sydney on my list.

Monick: You need to go as you can.

David: I will get there. Alright, what sets apart successful investors from those who give up, fail, or never get started?

Monick: Mindset. It is really how people think. Their beliefs about themselves, their beliefs about money, their beliefs about just what they can accomplish and deservability. Ultimately, if somebody feels that wealthy people are bad or money is bad, they are not going to do what they need to do in order to become wealthy. They think that they are not deserving some way fundamentally then they are not going to be able to ask or go get into those relationships that are crucial because they are going to think, well, why would anybody want to work with me? It is really about helping to like having the right mindset and it can be shifted but if you feel like oh, I could not do that because no one is going to want to work with me or any of that. If any of that comes up, then you have a mindset issue.

David: That is so good. Yes.

Brandon: Cool. Alright, final question of the Famous Four, where can people find out more about you?

David: Which is really the fifth question of the Famous Four.

Monick: It should be the Famous Five but it is all good.

David: It does not flow as well, anyway, where could people find you?

Monick: They can find me, the best place would be to go to real estateinvestorgoddesses.com. That is for the ladies, go to realestateinvestorgoddesses.com and you can find me there. For anybody else who wants to find me, just in the investor side, you can go to vip-assets.com. That is my investment syndication websites.

Brandon: Awesome.

David: Alright. Well, good deal, Monick. This has been a fantastic interview. It has been a lot of fun learning from you and kind of hearing your journey and your stories. Cannot wait to see where you head off in the future and I admire what you are doing quite a bit. I mean the fact that you are doing syndication, super cool. The fact that you are inspiring women across the world. I know you mentioned earlier you have this mission to help a million women achieve that financial independence, right? Like that is just so cool. Keep it up, you are doing awesome.

Monick: Thank you.

David: Thank you very much, Monick. This has been great and one of my favorite podcasts that we have done. I appreciate you being on here. With that being said, this is David Greene for Brandon, the overcompensating beard Turner, signing off.

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In This Episode We Cover:

  • How Monick bought at worst time to get into real estate
  • How she partnered on her first house with a friend and each lived in one side (unique and creative house hacking technique)
  • How she met Robert Helms of the Real Estate Radio podcast and it changed her thinking
  • Her “Three C” system for evaluating potential partners to work with:
    • Character
    • Commitment
    • Capacity
  • Her 7 criteria for choosing a market to invest in:
    1. Population growth
    2. Job growth
    3. Diversified economy
    4. Landlord friendly
    5. Business friendly
    6. In the right part of the market cycle (rising market)
    7. Familiarity
  • How she ramped up her business by getting into syndication
  • Why finding “business friendly” markets will help ensure you have a healthy tenant pool
  • The four stages to a market cycle (and which one you want to look for when deciding when to jump in)
  • How she developed land to create an awesome RV park to satisfy a market with massive rental demand
  • And SO much more!

Links from the Show

Books Mentioned in this Show

Fire Round Questions

Tweetable Topics:

  • “Relationship is very crucial in real estate investing.” (Tweet This!)
  • “Great talent does not cost you money; it makes you money.” (Tweet This!)
  • “Definitely, we’d have not gone where we are now if we were doing this alone.” (Tweet This!)
  • “Your network is your net worth.” (Tweet This!)

Connect with Monick

Note By BiggerPockets: These are opinions written by the author and do not necessarily represent the opinions of BiggerPockets.